Yes thanks, Llama. I remember now learning that at school. I enjoyed maths but the teacher wasn't great and I never got past second order differential equations and lost interest. I dropped out of a Mech. Eng degree because I was bored with maths. My son seemed to be a mediocre mathematician at best and I motivated him to believe he could be really good if he thought of nothing else for about a year and a half and he ended up getting a first class MMath and went on to physics. I was more good at mental arithmetic than maths. That meant I could score extremely high in things like IQ tests, due to concentration, photographic memory and visualisation skills as well as the ability to see the way to do puzzles very easily and basically invent things. That was no use whatsoever in academia but it was very useful in real life. I can sometimes work out tricky problems extremely fast and accurately, if I'm in the mood. It led to laziness and complacency because I can get myself out of a deep hole by applying myself. Not great either for working for other people. OK for working for myself. I've been very lucky and I am sure we make our own luck, really just by believing and having faith. I'm an atheist. I suppose I ought to mention that.
Does True Randomness Actually Exist? ( ^&*#^%$&#% )
Yes thanks, Llama. I remember now learning that at school. I enjoyed maths but the teacher wasn't great and I never got past second order differential equations and lost interest. I dropped out of a Mech. Eng degree because I was bored with maths. My son seemed to be a mediocre mathematician at best and I motivated him to believe he could be really good if he thought of nothing else for about a year and a half and he ended up getting a first class MMath and went on to physics. I was more good at mental arithmetic than maths. That meant I could score extremely high in things like IQ tests, due to concentration, photographic memory and visualisation skills as well as the ability to see the way to do puzzles very easily and basically invent things. That was no use whatsoever in academia but it was very useful in real life. I can sometimes work out tricky problems extremely fast and accurately, if I'm in the mood. It led to laziness and complacency because I can get myself out of a deep hole by applying myself. Not great either for working for other people. OK for working for myself. I've been very lucky and I am sure we make our own luck, really just by believing and having faith. I'm an atheist. I suppose I ought to mention that.
Ok 
Oh, so python is simply bad for such things, ok.
Python, Ruby on Rails, Javascript, PHP, etc. Yep. I mean it's okay for a proof of concept as done here, but maybe just do smaller sample sizes.
Haha I suppose you knew someone would write haha.
True randomness does exist, and somewhat astonishingly, you can dig into the quantum physics that underpins it with a simple and cheap experiment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcqZHYo7ONs&ab_channel=minutephysics
True randomness does exist, and somewhat astonishingly, you can dig into the quantum physics that underpins it with a simple and cheap experiment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcqZHYo7ONs&ab_channel=minutephysics
That was superb. I've hardly ever before watched an online video and wished it was a little slower. I usually get bored out of my skull and turn it off after two minutes, before I start getting annoyed at the American accents, because most American videos go too slow and that's just rubbing the insult in. I'm going to watch it again, about twice and it should all sink in.
True randomness does exist, and somewhat astonishingly, you can dig into the quantum physics that underpins it with a simple and cheap experiment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcqZHYo7ONs&ab_channel=minutephysics
That was superb. I've hardly ever before watched an online video and wished it was a little slower. I usually get bored out of my skull and turn it off after two minutes, before I start getting annoyed at the American accents, because most American videos go too slow and that's just rubbing the insult in. I'm going to watch it again, about twice and it should all sink in.
Yes!
This is one of the few videos where I feel like they're talking a bit fast. Usually I have to speed videos up, but this one was already fast, and certain parts needed rewinding.
I'm not sure why they did it this way. I wonder if they were trying to get the video down to a certain time.
@elroch, maybe you want to explain them that bell disproved Only local hidden variables proposed by Einstein, and by no mean disprove determinism? I'm not too hot about a thread of misinformation under my skirt.
100MM flips in Python 3.6 and a hypo-laptop...
Trial #1:
Counter ({'Heads': 49654953, 'Tails': 49654953}) the last time it reached parity...
Counter ({'Tails': 50000079, 'Heads: 49999921})
368 seconds
Trial #2:
Counter ({'Heads': 35353526, 'Tails': 35353526}) the last time it reached parity...
Counter ({'Heads': 50001425, 'Tails': 49998575)
358 seconds
Trial #3:
Counter ({'Heads': 1074648, 'Tails': 1074648}) the last time it reached parity...
Counter ({'Tails': 50002916, 'Heads: 49997084})
378 seconds
the first trial was crazy close & the second one was really close. i have found most trials to be aberrating closer to 1/25000 or 4000 per 100MM so these (3) turned out pretty good .
True randomness does exist, and somewhat astonishingly, you can dig into the quantum physics that underpins it with a simple and cheap experiment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcqZHYo7ONs&ab_channel=minutephysics
That was superb. I've hardly ever before watched an online video and wished it was a little slower. I usually get bored out of my skull and turn it off after two minutes, before I start getting annoyed at the American accents, because most American videos go too slow and that's just rubbing the insult in. I'm going to watch it again, about twice and it should all sink in.
Yes!
This is one of the few videos where I feel like they're talking a bit fast. Usually I have to speed videos up, but this one was already fast, and certain parts needed rewinding.
I'm not sure why they did it this way. I wonder if they were trying to get the video down to a certain time.
Maybe under 10 mins or whatever it was, and videos can be appalling. First a long period of self-luxuriation, interspersed with sermons, homilies and platitudes to get the watchers into a receptive mood, followed by a gradual introduction and then repetition of the homilies. By this time I'm seething with impatience and about ready to switch it off at the first sign of further procrastination. They give a couple of general points, try to crack a joke and I've hit the button.
When I was waching it last night, I was thinking that if it was 20%, slower I might be able to work out, on the hoof, why putting in extra polarizers increases the passage of light, before they came out with the reason they suggested, of entanglement. I did think that the first mathematical proof they outlined was probably unsound and one of them, either the Henry or the not-Henry, confirmed that by saying it had holes. Later, waiting to go to sleep, I had a fleeting thought that actually maybe the light is trying to act as a wave, which would allow the presence of a further filter to influence the light before it reached it. Another possibility was that polarisation at a smaller angle than about 70 degrees has an increasing effect of twisting the light waves and depolarising them, in some way, as the angle diminishes. I thought they should have demonstrated the effect of inserting one extra filter a 5 degrees and then moving it to 10 degrees and then 15 and so forh, to show what, if anything, happens. Then I would have had more chance of working it all out, before they had finished talking. I was sleeping a sleep of perfect self-satisfaction, within two minutes of going to bed.
@elroch, maybe you want to explain them that bell disproved Only local hidden variables proposed by Einstein, and by no mean disprove determinism? I'm not too hot about a thread of misinformation under my skirt.
There are so many reasons why determinism is incorrect. One, which I worked out, was that it wouldn't allow the brain to evolve. I don't want to explain it pedantically, which would be laborious and I've done that once or twice somewhere.
Really, hidden variables are the main method of explaining hypothetical determinism. They aren't really variables. In fact that's a misnomer because they would be bound to be constants, which give the appearance of variables, due to the complex mechanism that would be necessary. Of course, there's Ockham to consider. It's a strange and unwieldy idea, to propose such a complex mechanism to achieve precisely nothing, as opposed to randomness. I think Einstein is far, far over-rated as a thinker. He was extremely lucky in various ways. No need to take him seriously in general because likely influenced by Russell and other logical-positivists of the time. Opposed QM, couldn't work out for himself that Deism is a variety of Theism, etc etc.
But anyway, if you discredit "hidden variables" then what other mechanism is there for determinism? "Hidden variables" actually just means "a hidden mechanism".
Oh, if time is the problem, there may be tricks to speed it up. Everything in the computer is 1s and 0s, so it works with them very quickly. Just pretend 1s are heads and 0s are tails (or the other way around).
Then you can use simple operations like AND and bit shifting, which computers do very quickly.
For for example you do the AND function for two bits. If it returns 1 then you know they're the same. If it returns zero you know they're different. Then you shift to the next bit and do it again. (lol, 0 and 0 outputs zero, but still... use XOR same idea).
When the answer is zero, just pretend they "cancel out" and when the answer is 1, increment a counter. What you'll be left with is the counter shows the "extra" heads or tails. Add half of your starting number to the "extra" for heads, and subtract "extra" from half the starting number for tails (or vice versa).
I've never tried this with python, but I assume it's possible. You can also start experimenting with C++ for example. Once you can do one language it's pretty easy to try some of the same things in a new one. Python tends to be slower which is why I mention it.
Python is slow for such applications...it's an interpreted language, not compiled. Some Python developers will try to claim it is compiled *and* interpreted, because Python has a runtime "compiler" that takes the interpreted bytecode and runs it in the Python virtual machine, but since it actually interprets the code each time it is run, it is an interpreted language, and the step of interpreting the code is just wasted cycles vs. a compiled executable.
Compiled executables are themselves somewhat inefficient, but very few people write Assembly Language code anymore, so a good compiler is about as fast as you are going to get.
The app itself is simple. You could write a coin flip app in a batch file , but that would also be incredibly slow.
Oh, so python is simply bad for such things, ok.
Not really. Python is (fairly) slow for sequential operations. However, vectorising your code using numpy means it is quite fast.
For example, tossing a million coins a hundred times, and print out the difference between the number of heads and the number of tails in each of the 100 trials.
This code takes just over half a second.
import numpy as np
from time import time
start = time()
x = np.random.randint(2, size=(1000000,100))
diffs = 2*np.sum(x, axis=0)-1000000
print(means)
print("That took", time()-start, "seconds")
Having noticed Ghostess post above, here is the vectorised way to do that once, also taking about half a second.
import numpy as np
from time import time
start = time()
x = np.random.randint(2, size=100000000)
diff = 2*np.sum(x)-len(x)
print("Surplus heads =", diff,"taking", time()-start, "seconds")
Regarding Bell's experiment (and the video), one way to think of it is that the experiment is virtually like being able to take two independent measurements on the same particle without one affecting the result of the other. The reason this is so is that we know empirically that if you make the same observation of both of the entangled particles, you always get the same result, so you kind of get the result for the second particle for free when you observe one of them.
The video leads to this concept by starting by making multiple sequential measurements on the same particle first.
Here is another way to follow the reasoning.
Given that if the filters are 22.5 degrees different you get the same outcome 85% of the time, if the results were deterministic you would get the same outcome at least 70% of the time at 45 degrees (no more than 15% discrepancy twice), and would agree at least 40% (no more than 30% discrepancy twice) of the time at 90 degrees different. But we know they NEVER agree when 90 degrees different!
@elroch, I was hopping that you'll expend on the issue of locality, and determinism, as related to Bell. objectively of course.
Is there a real QM philosopher that is willing to jump into this muddy water and take the time to explain the topic of determinism honestly and objectively?
pythons got achd issues. attn-centric hypo-active.
heres my code (1BB tries) w/ a eggtimer and a callout list when loopcounts when h-t equal one other:
****
from collections import Counter
import random
import time
coinside = ["Heads","Tails"]
loopy = Counter()
start = time.time()
for _ in range (1000000000):
toss_it = random.choice(coinside)
loopy [toss_it] +=1
if loopy["Heads"] == loopy["Tails"]:
print(loopy)
print(loopy)
print(f'{(round(time.time()-start))} seconds')
***
Regarding Bell's experiment (and the video), one way to think of it is that the experiment is virtually like being able to take two independent measurements on the same particle without one affecting the result of the other. The reason this is so is that we know empirically that if you make the same observation of both of the entangled particles, you always get the same result, so you kind of get the result for the second particle for free when you observe one of them.
The video leads to this concept by starting by making multiple sequential measurements on the same particle first.
Here is another way to follow the reasoning.
Given that if the filters are 22.5 degrees different you get the same outcome 85% of the time, if the results were deterministic you would get the same outcome at least 70% of the time at 45 degrees (no more than 15% discrepancy twice), and would agree at least 40% (no more than 30% discrepancy twice) of the time at 90 degrees different. But we know they NEVER agree when 90 degrees different!
It will make more sense to me after I've watched it another twice, if I get round to doing that. The problem, slight though it is, is that there could be a deterministic mechanism which gives the appearance that determinism has been disproven through polarisation experiments.
I think it's necessary to clarify that hidden variables, meaning "hidden mechanism" is the only way we have to explain the concept of determinism. There has to be a hidden mechanism to produc random-like pseudo-random behaviour in elementary particles, as well as in ourselves. The illusion that we weigh up decisions and make instinctive, intuitive or rationalised decisions has to be created in our minds. Whereas really we are little, automatised robots with their springs wound up, waiting for the go button.
It's a rather silly, rather trivial idea: more so even than things we are not allowed to talk about. I stopped thinking about it years ago, after it became clear how many good arguments, some of which I came up with, most of which others have come up with, which not only discredit it but show it to be impossible, exist. Randomness, which is the thread title, is a much more interesting subject and useful to think about.
Anyway, thanks for the further explanation re the polarisation. I do not see it as foolproof in itself because it is yet another area where the hidden mechanism could be more complicated still and designed to give the impression that determinism is fake, although it's really true. It is merely yet another strong argument against determinism. I'm a naturalist at heart and do not believe we're living in a conspiracy where we inhabit the laboratory of some super-species. No doubt they would be in someone-else's laboratory, in any case. Maybe ours. Determinism is a futile, circular chase. Randomness is fascinating. We have minds and we should use them well, while we can. And not get bogged down in yet another illusion. Humanity has invented so many illusions for itself.
Oh, if time is the problem, there may be tricks to speed it up. Everything in the computer is 1s and 0s, so it works with them very quickly. Just pretend 1s are heads and 0s are tails (or the other way around).
Then you can use simple operations like AND and bit shifting, which computers do very quickly.
For for example you do the AND function for two bits. If it returns 1 then you know they're the same. If it returns zero you know they're different. Then you shift to the next bit and do it again. (lol, 0 and 0 outputs zero, but still... use XOR same idea).
When the answer is zero, just pretend they "cancel out" and when the answer is 1, increment a counter. What you'll be left with is the counter shows the "extra" heads or tails. Add half of your starting number to the "extra" for heads, and subtract "extra" from half the starting number for tails (or vice versa).
I've never tried this with python, but I assume it's possible. You can also start experimenting with C++ for example. Once you can do one language it's pretty easy to try some of the same things in a new one. Python tends to be slower which is why I mention it.
Python is slow for such applications...it's an interpreted language, not compiled. Some Python developers will try to claim it is compiled *and* interpreted, because Python has a runtime "compiler" that takes the interpreted bytecode and runs it in the Python virtual machine, but since it actually interprets the code each time it is run, it is an interpreted language, and the step of interpreting the code is just wasted cycles vs. a compiled executable.
Compiled executables are themselves somewhat inefficient, but very few people write Assembly Language code anymore, so a good compiler is about as fast as you are going to get.
The app itself is simple. You could write a coin flip app in a batch file , but that would also be incredibly slow.
Oh, so python is simply bad for such things, ok.